F O R Y O U R I N F O R M A T I O N
RELATIVE APPROVAL MONITORING
This is to inform staff that effective immediately, as part of a recent settlement agreement between the Youth Law Center and the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), CDSS will monitor County compliance with the relative approval process on-line. Counties are required to complete and attach the following three forms to the CSW/CMS case record to be in compliance:
· SOC 815, Approval of Family Caregiver Home;
· SOC 817, Checklist of Health and Safety Standards for Approval of Family Caregiver home; and
· SOC 818, Relative or Non-Relative Extended Family Member Caregiver Assessment.
DCFS Information Technology Services has created the SOC 815, SOC 817, and SOC 818 as templates that will self-populate limited identifying information from CWS/CMS.
The following procedures instruct staff regarding how to locate the SOC 815, SOC 817, and SOC 818 on CWS/CMS:
1. Open the child’s case.
2. With the appropriate case open in the “green” case folder, click on the plus button create new document-case.
3. In the generate new documents window, click on the down arrow and select Los Angeles from the list of California counties. Click on Los Angeles County. Click ok.
4. Click on the desired document to generate by clicking on the appropriate document from the list of “documents to generate ”(SOC 815/ SOC 817/SOC 818). Click ok.
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5. Microsoft Word will open and the selected document will appear on the screen. The document will populate with information specific to the open CWS/CMS case. Enter additional case-specific information into the shaded data fields in the document.
NOTE: Populated data fields cannot be corrected on the SOC documents. The data is corrected in the appropriate CWS/CMS Notebook. Do not print or save an incorrect SOC document; correct the information and generate a new corrected document.
6. Print the document.
In order to meet CDSS’ monitoring requirements, staff shall do the following:
· Prior to making the on-site home inspection for a relative or non-relative extended family member, follow the steps above to locate the SOC 815, SOC 817 and SOC 818, using the child’s case or the eldest child’s case if placing a sibling group.
· Print the SOC 817 and SOC 818 and take them for the home inspection.
· Complete the SOC 817 and SOC 818 at the on-site home inspection. After the on-site inspection, data enter and save them to the CWS/CMS case for the child or eldest sibling if making a sibling placement.
· Complete the SOC 815 on-line, print and save it on CWS/CMS.
· Print hard copies of the SOC 815, SOC 817, and SOC 818 and submit them to the SCSW for review and approval. File the hard copies in the Placement Folder.
· Submit pages 1 and 2 of the SOC 815 and the DCFS 280 to the Eligibility Worker as verification of approval for issuance of the placement packet.
Upon receipt of the SOC 815 from the CSW, the Eligibility Worker enters the information per existing procedures in the Special Projects Page in CWS/CMS. For a sibling placement, the Eligibility Worker documents the information in the sibling’s case(s) by entering the following notation in the Existing Placement Home Notebook on the ID page in the “comment” field:
“The approved SOC 815, SOC 817 and SOC 818 can be located in the (enter the eldest sibling’s name) case, who is the child’s sibling.”
Utilize the following procedures if the home is not being used as a placement for the child(ren):
· SOC 817 and SOC 818 completed at the on-site home inspection are not data entered onto CSW/CMS.
· SOC 815 is completed, printed, but not saved.
· Create an ASFA Placement Resource folder and file the hard copies of the SOC 815, SOC 817, and SOC 818 in this folder.